Life of Liam

It's been just under a year since I last wrote for this blog. I don't really know why I stopped, but I guess life just gets busy and you get caught up in so much that you don't take time to reflect. But I think that's what I need to do now. It's been a very eventful year from last April to now. My partner and I got our own flat, I passed my driving test, and we went on a few small breaks in between around Scotland. We spent a lot of time with friends and family, went to a wedding, and welcomed my nephew to the world. The past month or so, however, has been challenging. The Coronavirus crisis has put almost the entire world on hold and has really affected the UK in the past few weeks. My life has been sort of flipped upside down in this crisis due to my employment situation. I won't go in to too much detail but, in a nutshell, I was due to start my first proper full-time job (what I thought would be the start of my career) a few weeks ago. On my start date...

Note from Liam: an edited version of this post has been included on The Glasgow Guardian's (University of Glasgow student newspaper) website as part of their LGBT History Month 2018 coverage. You can see that post here . 2017 marks 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in the United Kingdom (which applied only to England and Wales). Scotland would not legalise homosexuality for another 14 years until 1981. Photo Credit - DrRandomFactor (Wikimedia Commons) 50 years. It really is not a long time at all. 50 years is within my parents' generation, which means that those older than 50 were alive in a time where homosexuals could be legally reprimanded for being themselves. For Scotland, it is only 36 years which is even less time and may include some people of my generation. Although a lot of change and progress has occurred in the past 50 years, I think it would be ludicrous to try and ignore the fact that homophobia still exists in some form in Scotland and need...

View of the River Clyde Glasgow , Scotland's largest city (though sadly not the capital. Thanks a lot, Edinburgh!). A population of just over 600,000 weird and wonderful people. A city that has so much going on, so much culture, happiness, and beauty. And for me, it's home. This post is quite long and the first part focuses on my experience of living in Glasgow over the past 3 years. The second part discusses my top 3 favourite things about Glasgow, so if you want to skip the nostalgic and personal stuff then scroll about halfway down the post! I moved to Glasgow in September 2014 for University, however, I grew up in Livingston which is under an hour away. So it wasn't a tremendous move, but far away enough from home that I could have my independence - and, of course, still close enough to home that I could visit my parents without trekking the country! Growing up, I had always viewed Glasgow as this strange, big, and scary city. It was certainly rougher than Edin...